Please disable your Ad Blocker to better interact with this website.

Opinion

PROTESTER PRIVILEGE: Peaceful Lockdown Protests Are ‘Killing Grandma’ But BLM Protests Turning Into Riots Are A-Okay

We’re always told by leftists that there is a hierarchy of “privilege” in America. Maybe they’re right.

But it’s probably not in the way that they imagined.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “privilege” as “a right or immunity granted as a peculiar benefit, advantage, or favor.”

In April, after the “15 Days to Slow The Spread” was extended and then extended again, people began to wake up to the possibility that this “public health emergency,” although serious for some groups, was being hijacked by a handful of state and local authoritarians to flex their totalitarian muscle on a compliant public. But, this is America, and we don’t do authoritarian here very well. Protests against excessively harsh lockdown restrictions began to pop up. Those protests were dismissed as “white people” getting angry and chalked up to “white privilege.”

Vox published an article in April by Dr. Maia Niguel Hoskin, a college professor, freelance writer, and researcher of race-related issues, mental health, and social media. (She sounds busy.) It was titled, The Whiteness Of Anti-Lockdown Protests: How ignorance, privilege, and anti-black racism is driving white protesters to risk their lives.

Vox wasn’t the only one condemning the anti-lockdown protests as “white privilege”–so did The New York Times and The Los Angeles Times. Meanwhile, Business Insider and Salon went further saying that they were hotbeds of “far-right extremists” and magnets for “white supremacists.”

The article in Vox, however, made an interesting (if somewhat nutty) point.

Here’s a tasty little tidbit from the Vox article:

Last weekend, thousands gathered in Washington, Michigan, Texas, Maryland, and California to protest lockdown orders resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. Some marched with rifles draped across their backs and handguns resting on their hips, while others shared conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and his involvement with the Covid-19 vaccine.

Even in larger, less-rural cities in California, groups waved “Trump 2020” flags and marched the streets with signs that read, “No Liberty. No Life.” And these protests only seem to be picking up steam: On Friday, thousands stormed the Wisconsin State Capitol, carrying flags and wearing Tea Party regalia.

But what has been most glaringly obvious about these protests isn’t the far-right theatrics. It’s that almost everyone marching to end stay-at-home orders is white. And if they do return to “regular life” and refuse to distance themselves, their overt disregard will impact the population most vulnerable to the virus — black people…

…But if states open back up, it will come at whose expense? In the US, black Americans are dying of Covid-19 at disproportionate rates to other racial and ethnic groups. According to an American Public Media Research Lab report published this week, almost 50,000 people have died of Covid-19 in the country. Data for about three-fourths of those deaths reveals that the mortality rate for blacks is 2.7 times higher than for whites. Although blacks make up only 13 percent of the population, they represent 30 percent of Covid-19 patients in the US. The data continues to reveal which Americans face the greatest risk if the country is reopened.
Source: Vox

How quickly things change.

In the last week and a bit, we have seen anti-racism protesters exhibit a level of privilege that was heretofore inconceivable–they’ve disregarded the diktats of the vaunted public health officials in order to gather en masse in the midst of a global pandemic and lockdown orders in order to protest police brutality and anti-black racism. Initially, the protests were sparked by the unjust death of a black ex-con with drugs in his system in Minneapolis who was held down with a knee to his neck for a shocking 8 minutes and 46 seconds by a white police officer who had 17 misconduct complaints made against him.

Now let me take a second here to say that George Floyd did not deserve the cold, callous death that he received even if he did hold a gun at a pregnant woman back in the day and had fentanyl in his system. He is neither a villain nor is he a martyr. He was a man who made good decisions and bad decisions. But what is clear from the video that we have seen so far is that he did not appear to resist arrest. He did not deserve that treatment. I don’t know a single person who disagrees with that.

And yet, Floyd’s death was “pounced” upon by activists to quickly hold him aloft as an example of systemic racism in police departments in America. It doesn’t matter if the facts simply do not bear that out–it’s the narrative that is important.

Leftist activists like the Black Lives Matter movement quickly moved in to condemn all police and push their own leftist agenda.

While we have been told that we need to “Stay at home to save lives” and it’s everyone’s responsibility to “socially distance” and, in some cases, wear a mask, these large-scale protests are suddenly ok.

Public health officials have weighed in and now, rather ridiculously, stated that combatting “systemic racism” outweighs the risk of spreading the virus.

It appears that Black Lives Matter only applies to the handful of lives that are lost during an interaction with a white cop, but the 24% of COVID deaths–22,204 people–in the United States–well, we can risk increasing that number for “the cause.”

The privilege that I write about isn’t the privilege of blacks over whites as some have said, no, this is the privilege of leftism.

Black Lives Matter is not just a movement that opposing police brutality against black people, it’s a hodge-podge of leftism that has particular goals in establishing their own version of a “free and just” society. This includes “dismantling white supremacy”, “the patriarchy”, “heteronormativity,” “cis-gender privilege,” and the “Western-prescribed nuclear family structure.” They also want to defund and/or dismantle police departments, open borders, and enact socialism. This would only put the communities that they say that they care about at risk.

If you defund the police, what happens when domestic abuse happens? Who does an abused woman turn to? What about theft, drug and sex trafficking, or gang violence? Those stuck in poverty can’t afford to hire private security like the dunces in Hollywood signing the petition to do that very thing because it won’t affect them one whit.

This is the agenda that we have seen countless police, leftist officials, and even the “woke” Prime Minister of Canada “take a knee” in solidarity for.

This is the leftism that is immune to critique. That is its privilege. It can do whatever it wants and if you oppose it, well, you’re a bigot.

If you clean up BLM graffiti you are now racist and misusing your “white privilege.”

What privilege? The privilege to be criticized for scrubbing graffiti off of a building?

The only privilege that I see is the person holding the phone echoing the same, tired privilege of “woke” leftism insisting that if you don’t agree with them on every talking point then you’re the bad person.

If you say that now that everyone is out protesting so we can just open up already, that’s “white privilege” and missing the point. Don’t even ask if you can go back to church if it’s still closed.

The privilege of leftism, wokeism, or whatever you want to call it, is that they are expanding their echo chamber and they cannot be criticized. If you dare do such a thing, you’re immediately labeled a racist or whatever -ist or -phobe that fits the bill for them. They’ve got it all in there, so they are beyond scrutiny and beyond condemnation. It doesn’t even matter if you belong to one of their preferred groups, they’ll circle the wagons, shout you down and/or cancel you anyway.

If you oppose one iota of the Black Lives Matter agenda, rest assured that the partisan “public health experts” won’t have your back, neither will the “woke” celebrities sitting pretty behind their walls, the leftist politicians who are kissing up to BLM for votes, or the media elites who are suffering severe cases of Trump Derangement Syndrome™. You’re on your own, kid.

This is their privilege–they can never be challenged. Their “allies” won’t let you.

K. Walker

ClashDaily's Associate Editor since August 2016. Self-described political junkie, anti-Third Wave Feminist, and a nightmare to the 'intersectional' crowd. Mrs. Walker has taken a stand against 'white privilege' education in public schools. She's also an amateur Playwright, former Drama teacher, and staunch defender of the Oxford comma. Follow her humble musings on Twitter: @TheMrsKnowItAll and on Gettr @KarenWalker

Related Articles